Rustnstuff: 04/20

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Soft nurturing rain

Over the last couple of days we have a had a few rain showers - very light, very short and very nurturing for the veggies and other plants.

But with the showers come rain clouds and therefore darker mornings and days - there is a balance.

The plants have rejoiced in the soft rain - refreshed colours and jewel like droplets.

A beautiful soft light morning walk added to by the sounds of magpies on the wires.

And a photo for Fiona - reflections in road puddles.

And for me - reflections on the kitchen bench top through the kettle.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Thoughts for our time

During the week I was reading and thinking about John O'Donohue's words in his poem-blessing titled "For the interim time". I feel this speaks of any time of transition; though when he wrote he was speaking about dusk time.

I feel the words are apt for any time in our life where we are making some form of transition; so it may not be surprising that I think they are quite apt for the time of the pandemic. A time where the path we took "has washed out"; and yet we are still not clear about what our new personal and community normal will be.

I did a limited run of 24 postcards with the four lines that resonated most strongly with me. A few photos of the process follow.

© 2020 Barry Smith - I was working with 18 pt Excelsior font - trays on the left; whilst Fiona was working on the Lighting Jobber Press printing her poem Open - the Deckled Edge Press space is great to work in.

And another photo of the finished postcards.

And yes "withheld' is spelt with a double h.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Beauty and inspiration

I have been making sets of daily word leaves for a few years now. They are a creation I keep coming back to as I feel the words carry their own power. Today I completed four new sets.

How it works is that each day one: randomly selects a leaf, reads the word and hold it for a little while to set that word as the inspiration or a focus for the day. Next day the leaves are mixed up and a leaf is chosen. The word could be the same as yesterday or you might be offered a new word. The words in my sets are: wonder, shine, joy, peace, love, hope and dream. I do make sets on commission as well because some folk want their own words or more words; and even a larger bowl.

Quite a bit of mindful work goes into making these sets. A couple of process photos follow.

A few photos of leaves and the finished leaves and a bowl with a leaf follow.

The four sets will go into my online shop over the weekend.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Transitions - the in between

Both Fiona and I were a little amazed this morning by the fact that the early mornings seem to be getting darker quite speedily. The photo above was taken a about 5.30am.

But the light began to suffuse the sky quite quickly - the photo below was taken about 30minutes later. And a few minutes later - beautiful colours lighting up a scaled cloud sky.

The light transition reminded me of one of John O'Donohue's blessings - For the interim time - the in between time. I want to focus on that in my future letterpress print work.

It was a gentle morning for a walk. Again a few fragments along the way.

I met Trish and her dogs on my walk - we had quite the talk (at a distance) about a number of people she knows who are ill and dying - she was struggling with these on top of the challenges of our virus time. Different forms of transition and in between.

But I end with a glorious sunset sky from a couple of days ago - clouds brushed across the sky.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Multiples can take some time

Over the last few days Fiona and I have spent a few hours each day in the letterpress studio. I had committed to doing an alphabet of bookmarks using 24pt Excelsior font - a cursive font surrounded by very old and slightly worn border ornaments you see in the photo above.

To produce 180 bookmarks it probably too me roughly 9-10 hours. What took much of the time was changing over the 26 capitals of the alphabet; and making sure they were centred properly and held firmly with different sized spacers. Each time I would do a test run and adjust the location of the letter if necessary - you can see in the photo below my tests - both sides of the paper was used to minimise waste.

I used a formula for each letter of the alphabet that I found on the internet - advice given by a jewellery maker regarding the letters that sell in a hierarchy from Hot down to Quite Rare. See the pages of my work book below - I needed to print about 130 bookmarks but building in extras for possible blemishes I printed 180.

Anyway the photo below shows the 180 completed.

And because I had the ornaments set up, ink on the press and 12 blanks I decided to put a 24pt ornament in centre and print a few decorative bookmarks - Fiona suggested I print both ends that way folk could put them into a book either way and still have a decorative end showing.

This was a good printing exercise as it gave me lots of practice in locking up and using spacers.

Friday, April 17, 2020

Shiny

Finally I got to finish the Tea-caddy spoons, Leaf-spoons and Leaf Pate Knives. Because I was making multiples of all of these pieces it has taken me quite a long time to take then from the silver-plated metal trays stage to this point where they can be sold.

As you can see from the photo below I ended up with 30 pieces. There were a few discards along the way - metal fatigue in metal from a silver-plated copper tray and also a silver-plated nickel silver tray - one too soft and the other too brittle.